An ASIC implementation for V-BLAST Detection in 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS

The V-BLAST system has been shown to be capable of exploiting the capacity advantage of multiple antenna systems. The square root algorithm for V-BLAST detection is attractive to hardware implementations due to low computational complexity and numerical stability. A low complexity VLSI architecture of the square root algorithm is presented in this paper. The proposed architecture is scalable for various configurations, and implemented in AMIS 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS technology for a 4/spl times/4 QPSK V-BLAST system. When the received symbol packet length is larger than or equal to 100 bytes, the implemented chip can achieve a maximally possible detection throughput of 128/spl sim/160 Mb/s with a maximal clock frequency of 80 MHz.